The Top 10 Most Influential CEOs to Watch in 2022

ISSN 2582-127X

July 2022

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Successful CEOs: Four Essential Qualities that Matter

With the Right Business Leadership, Companies Reap the Rewards

Most Influential

CEOs

TO WATCH IN 2022

Kevin Dallas CEO

volume 2

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EDITORIAL

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ith the digital age well and truly upon us, the changes brought about due to the advent of this era have been many and multifaceted. On that note, the role of the CEOs or the Chief Executive Officers is also changing by the day.

Digital transformation can result in a completely different company and for this reason, it is imperative that the CEO becomes the driving force behind it. Team leads and the CIO will be able to make decisions for their departments, but strong guidance from the top is needed to help the process along, get buy-in from all stakeholders, and allocate the correct funding and resources. For the implementation of a successful digital transformation strategy, the CEO will also need to define the roles and responsibilities of those people in leadership positions. If this is not articulated clearly, it could lead to several issues, including execution gaps and infighting, which will weaken the overall program.

The CEO is often the public face of a company. For large corporations with a high public profile, this can mean everything from being the lead speaker at conventions or product announcements to making appearances in the media. When the company issues official statements, it will often do so in the name of the CEO. The CEO needs to become the company champion for digital transformation. Publicly displaying buy-in will not only encourage people working within the organization to get on board, but it will also show all external stakeholders that the CEO, and therefore the whole company, is truly committed to transforming the company to fit modern times. By giving full support to the journey, CEOs will embed themselves in the knowledge of how the business strategy will change and what tweaks or major modifications need to be made to the company business model. They will then be able to communicate clearly to employees and be able to answer questions.

The organizations CEOs oversee today are more complex and unwieldy. While earlier, CEOs could proudly say that they are leading a workforce of, say a Hundred Thousand FTEs or Full Time Employees, the CEOs in the Digital Age can only point to the ever-changing number of part-timers and freelancers who work for their firms. Businesses are operating in an environment of sustained uncertainty and intense competition, and face higher expectations from employees, shareholders, and other stakeholders. All of this has many wondering whether new models or approaches to CEO leadership are in order.

Recognizing the limits of traditional management structures and styles to respond to complex challenges, some CEOs are embracing leadership models that spread responsibility and accountability for the business to a broader group of executives. What is seen emerging is a movement toward “shared leadership” management models, which are defined as organizations that place the CEO at the center of a circle rather than atop a pyramid.

Aratrika Dutta

Content Analyst

JULY 2022 Manjeera Trinity Corporate, 13th Floor, Kukatpally Housing Board Colony, Hyderabad, Telangana, India Tel: +91 40 23055215 177 Park Avenue Suite 200, San Jose, CA 95131, USA Tel : +1-408-380-2566 Copyright @2022 Analy cs Insight. All Rights Reserved.

The content and images used in the publica on should not be reproduced or transmi ed in any form or by any means without the prior permission of Analy cs Insight.

CREDITS Ashish Sukhadeve Editor-in-Chief

Adilin Beatrice Manager

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Disha Sinha Content Analyst

Satavisa Pati Content Analyst

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COVER STORY

Kevin Dallas CEO, Wind River

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Michael Bailey

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Mark Cohen

Kash Shaikh

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Paul Humphrey Articles

Successful CEOs: Four Essential Qualities that Matter

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Ted Kohnen

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Trevor M. Saliba

With the Right Business Leadership, Companies Reap the Rewards

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A Go-To Tech Enthusiast Exemplifying Innovation by Advancing the SoftwareDefined AI-First World

www.analyticsinsight.net

COVER STORY

Kevin Dallas

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Instill a sense of belief in the transformation you are driving, behave as if you are the company you aspire to be, then be the company you aspire to be.

Kevin Dallas CEO, Wind River

www.windriver.com

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e are entering the second wave of digital transformation, the transformation of operational technology (OT).

This is where enterprises are delivering next-generation intelligent systems that will fuel a new intelligent machine economy, which in turn will transform both society and our economy. These intelligent machines range from autonomous vehicles, robots, to drones that are software-defined and AI-Infused. This market opportunity is unprecedented with an estimated $2T impact on GDP, and a software spend of over $100B by 2025.

Wind River is a global leader in delivering software for mission-critical intelligent machines with its industry-leading offering Wind River

Studio, a cloud-native software platform that spans the full lifecycle of the system from development, deployment, operations, and services. The company serves aerospace, defense, telecommunications, automotive, industrial, and medical industries powering billions of devices and systems that require the highest levels of security, safety, and reliability.

For more than four decades, Wind River has been an innovator, from having the first realtime operating system on Mars to playing a key role in the world's first successful 5G data session and building one of the largest Open RAN networks in the world. The Wind River mission is to enable our blue chip customers to realize this exciting new digital future for the planet.

A Transformational Leader with Decades of Experience As the President and CEO of Wind River, Kevin Dallas is responsible for all aspects of the company's business globally and has. He has more than 25 years of experience driving digital innovation and growth at technology companies.

Kevin joined Wind River from Microsoft in February 2020, where he served as the Corporate Vice President for cloud and AI business development. At Microsoft, he led a team creating partnerships that enable the digital transformation of customers and partners across a range of industries, including connected/autonomous vehicles, industrial IoT, discrete manufacturing, retail, financial services, media and entertainment, and healthcare.

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Prior to joining Microsoft in 1996, Kevin held roles at NVIDIA Corporation and National Semiconductor (now Texas Instruments Inc.) in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East in positions that included microprocessor design, and systems engineering, product management, and end-to-end business leadership. Besides the above-mentioned accolades, Kevin is also currently serving as a director on the board of Align Technology, Inc., which he states has given him insight into how companies are actually run.

He has acquired a B.Sc. degree in electrical and electronic engineering from Staffordshire University, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England.

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Learning Invaluable Lessons from Top CEOs Recollecting his professional journey, Kevin mentions that he had the opportunity to work with and learn from world-class CEOs like Satya Nadella (Microsoft CEO), Jensen Huang (Nvidia CEO), Alan Mulally (ex-Boeing and Ford CEO), and Joe Hogan (Align Technology CEO). Common across these leaders was the ability to drive a compelling transformational vision for the

company, comprehensive strategy, relentless execution, and a culture focused on customer & product truth. Kevin took these learnings to manage a P&L and grow an end-to-end business at Microsoft from US$100M to US$1B in revenue; and most recently the ongoing transformation of Wind River that is being acquired by Aptiv for $4.3B.

Driving Transformation He opines that the biggest challenging in driving a company transformation is instilling a sense of belief at the leadership team level. "Instill a sense of belief in the transformation you are driving, behave as if you are the company you aspire to be, then be the company you aspire to be, is by far the biggest challenge" he states.

Kevin further asserts that at Wind River, in addition to belief there needs to be a lived experience around three cultural attributes:

customer focus, growth mindset, and diversity and inclusion. Although Wind River has won numerous top workplace accolades over the past several years in a row, he believes that it will take another 3 to 5 years to make the cultural attributes the lived experience.

Specifically changing from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset is crucial, besides executing operations with discipline and at the leadership team level.

'Integrity' at the Heart of Good Leadership Kevin insists that integrity is the foundation of good leadership, and one must stand for their beliefs. No matter how hard a situation is, a good leader inspires with his principles without compromising; they refrain from making false promises or taking shortcuts, choosing thoughts and action over personal gain. A leader should be visionary, driven, and inspired by what a company can become. Kevin claims that ensuring a vision for the future with perseverance and keeping everybody invested in the process is what a visionary leader does.

They do not hold back from taking risks and making unconventional decisions.

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He shares that through the last 10 years of his career, a principle he always kept top of mind was “realize that with every challenge there is an opportunity, be the one that finds the opportunity.” This principle came into effect for him particularly with the COVID pandemic during the entire tenure of my role as CEO of Wind River. He says that in partnership with his leadership the company was able to evolve a great collaboration environment for its employees, win in new markets like 5G Telco, provide best in class customer success services, and deliver record breaking financial results for its shareholders during the COVID pandemic.

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Realizing the New Intelligent Machine Economy The software-defined AI-first world that is driving the intelligent machine economy is fundamentally changing every company, every industry, and our society. Kevin remarks that this new world is elevating the human ability to achieve more in a safe and secure environment, and is enabling exciting new experiences across everybody's digital lives.

“As we look at today's modern world, we are seeing tremendous growth in what the contemporary consumer expects to experience.

From automated self-driving cars that can perform accident-avoidance functions to advanced robotics and lights-out manufacturing automation and augmented reality, the digital future is bright with opportunity,” reveals Kevin.

He adds that these applications are heavily dependent on innovating edge computing technologies, such as far edge cloud, data

analytics, AI/ML, distributed system security, and 5G connectivity. In particular, the rate of industry innovation is ever increasing making all these new technologies available at the intelligent edge. In fact, 75% of the compute, data analytics, and AI processing will be done at the edge post 2025.

In this digitally transformed software-defined AIfirst world, people are seeing the rapid rise of new digital-native companies that have disrupted traditional business models and destabilized established players and industry sectors, presumes Kevin. As a result, he says that traditional companies realize they face an existential threat and are accepting that to realize their digital future in the new intelligent machine economy, they need to embrace software, data, and AI as value drivers for their businesses.

A Vision and Mission Reflecting Wind River's True North According to Kevin, the software-defined AI-first world is pushing the pace of innovation and transforming the industries it serves ranging from aerospace to automotive, defense to industrial, and medical to telecommunications.

He mentions that this software-defined era, along with the second wave of digital transformation and new intelligent machine economy are all seismic global trends that are accelerating Wind River's next phase of growth.

Wind River's vision is a software-defined AI-first world where intelligent machines empower organizations, driving transformational economic and social change, avows Kevin. The company's mission is to enable its customers to realize the digital future of the planet with software-defined mission-critical intelligent systems where security, safety, and reliability are paramount.

Tech Leadership Excellence Kevin's advice for budding or emerging leaders is to follow your passion. While talking about following one's passion, he mentions being personally passionate about realizing a digital future of the new intelligent machine economy.

He concludes by saying that leaders every day should aspire to be role models, live by their www.analyticsinsight.net

cultural values, and coach their teams', providing a safe haven to help them learn and grow. Leaders have to show they care by balancing professional and personal values for employees.

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Kevin Dallas

Paul Humphrey

CEO Wind River

CEO

As the President and CEO of Wind River, Kevin Dallas is responsible for all aspects of the company’s business globally and has. He has more than 25 years of experience driving digital innova on and growth at technology companies.

Kevin joined Wind River from Microso in February 2020, where he served as the Corporate Vice President for cloud and AI business development. www.windriver.com

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Call Journey Paul Humphrey co-founded Call Journey along with Anthony Karam around four years ago and has been the CEO of the organiza on since then. He is a serial growth accelerator with a long history of crea ng and building high performance teams and communi es with an insa able appe te for customer centricity.

Humphrey built many organiza ons through acquisi ons and has significant experience in complex large enterprises building.

Most Influential

CEOs

TO WATCH IN 2022

www.calljourney.com

Ted Kohnen

Trevor M. Saliba

Kash Shaikh

Michael Bailey

CEO & Managing Partner

Founding Managing Partner

President & Chief Execu ve Officer

CEO

Re na

NMS Consul ng

Ted Kohnen became Re na’s CEO three months before the COVID-19 pandemic fully took hold. As a 20year marke ng and adver sing agency veteran with broad experience helping global enterprises, mul -na onals, and non-profits ac vate their brands, Kohnen was well suited to meet the challenges head on. Growing up and star ng his career in New York City, he was exposed to many different kinds of people and businesses.

Trevor M. Saliba is the Founding Managing Partner of NMS Consul ng, a global management consul ng and strategic advisory firm based in the firm’s Beverly Hills. Trevor is also the Chairman & CEO of NMS Capital Group, global focused venture capital and private equity investment firm.

Previously, he also served as Chairman and CEO of NMS Capital Advisors, a subsidiary por olio company of NMS Capital Group. www.nmsconsul ng.com

www.re nab2.com

Virtana Kash Shaikh is the President and Chief Execu ve Officer of Virtana.

He joined the company in 2020 to launch their next genera on SaaS unified observability pla orm and prepare the go-to-market team to help customers along their journey to the cloud. Beyond the day-today, a large part of his role is to ‘make the complex simple’ for Virtana’s customers, partners, and employees.

AVEO Michael Bailey is the CEO of AVEO. He took up the role in 2015 and has led the company through the design, funding, and execu on of the pivotal study which acted as the basis of its very first cancer drug approval. Michael has consistently encouraged AVEO to achieve its full poten al by energizing their team to stay focused on the pa ent. www.aveooncology.com

www.virtana.com

Mark Cohen

Shantanu Narayen

Alfred F. Kelly, Jr

CEO

Chairman & Chief Execu ve Officer

CEO

Chairman of the Board & CEO

Visa

Forrester Research

Alfred F. Kelly, Jr., joined Visa in October, 2016 as Chief Execu ve Officer and was elected Chairman of the Board in April, 2019. Alfred spent the majority of his career at American Express where he worked from 1987 to 2010. Over those 23 years, he held several senior posi ons, including serving as President from July 2007 to April 2010.

As Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Forrester Research, George F. Colony is one of the most influen al thought leaders in the world of business and technology. He is a trusted advisor to execu ves around the globe, providing context and clarity around the digital disrup ons that change the way we live and work. George founded Forrester in his basement 30 years ago.

Ntelicor Mark Cohen founded Ntelicor in 1998 and has served as CEO since that me. Cohen’s leadership has helped over 2300 people to start or to con nue new jobs and careers. Several Fortune 50 companies working in both the private and public sectors rely upon Cohen’s insights for supplying and projec ng the company’s IT needs. Ntelicor has been an IT consul ng company since incep on. www.ntelicor.com

Adobe Shantanu Narayen is Chairman and Chief Execu ve Officer of Adobe, one of the largest and most diversified so ware companies in the world. As CEO, Shantanu has transformed the company into an industry innovator by pioneering a cloud-based subscrip on model for its crea ve suite, establishing the global standard for digital documents and crea ng and leading the explosive digital experience category. www.adobe.com

usa.visa.com

George F. Colony

www.forrester.com

Michael Bailey CEO, AVEO Oncology

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Michael Bailey

Committed to Empowering Enterprises with Intelligent Data Management Solutions

A

VEO Oncology is a commercialstage, oncology-focused biopharmaceutical company that is committed to delivering medicines which provide a better life for patients with cancer. AVEO currently markets FOTIVDA® (tivozanib) in the U.S. to treat adult patients with relapsed or refractory renal cell carcinoma (RCC) following two or more prior systemic therapies. AVEO continues to develop FOTIVDA with immuno-oncology combinations in RCC and other indications and also has several other investigational programs in clinical development. AVEO is determined to create an environment of diversity, equity, and inclusion to expand representation within the company.

Transitioning the Lives of Cancer Patients AVEO's mission is to improve the lives of cancer patients. For the past twenty-years starting from 2001 with its inception as Genpath and to changing as AVEO in the year 2005, the company was on a journey to fulfil its aim. AVEO went public in 2010 and has always worked tirelessly towards developing a portfolio of products that are intended to benefit the patients battling cancer. In March of 2021, AVEO received its first FDA approval for the www.analyticsinsight.net

company's lead compound that is now commercially available for kidney cancer patients who have progressed on with two or more prior therapies.

An Inclusive and Encouraging Leader Michael Bailey is the CEO of AVEO. He took up the role in 2015 and has led the company through the design, funding, and execution of the pivotal study which acted as the basis of its very first cancer drug approval. Michael has consistently encouraged AVEO to achieve its full potential by energizing their team to stay focused on the patient and to have fun along the challenging journey. His quality of embracing diversity, encouraging inclusion, and his spirit of accountability to the company mission are some of the key elements that drove the company towards success. Michael never lets anybody forget what they are doing at AVEO, why there are doing so, and how it is improving the lives of cancer patients.

Turning Sorrows into Smiles with Advanced Products AVEO's end customers are the patients and hence the company always tries its best to focus

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It is an absolute privilege to work in an industry that is focused on improving the lives of cancer patients. I am amazed by the intelligence, dedication, and compassion of my colleagues at AVEO and in the broader biotechnology industry. We all work every day to make a difference in people's lives. I cannot think of a more virtuous quest.

Michael Bailey CEO, AVEO Oncology

www.aveooncology.com

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its efforts to improve their lives states Michael.

He adds that AVEO believes that its recently approved product for kidney cancer, along with other products in the development portfolio have the potential to improve the lives of various types of cancer patients. AVEO is one of the many companies in the industry that is pursuing a noble mission and its recent success is positively contributing to the biotechnological industry by providing the oncology community with additional potential treatment options to address the significant unmet medical needs of cancer patients.

Strategically Meeting the Unmet Needs According to Michael, AVEO's products and culture are the two factors that make the company both innovative and unique. It is focused on developing drugs to address the significant unmet needs of cancer patients. As a cornerstone of AVEO's strategy that also helps to accomplish its goals, the company has sought to leverage partnerships to move its products forward. AVEO's culture embraces diversity, demands integrity, relies on collaboration, and ensures an engaging work environment by maintaining a common drive to achieve the mission of improving the lives of patients with cancer.

Clinical and Regulatory Norms, A NeverEnding Challenge AVEO has faced many challenges during the past 20 years of existence. Michael reveals that these included clinical and regulatory setbacks along with funding challenges that required restructuring of the organization and also refocusing its strategic path to advance its programs. Many companies in the healthcare industry face these challenges, however, what is remarkable about AVEO is that the company not only survived these events but has evolved into a commercial and clinical organization which www.analyticsinsight.net

advances the portfolio by delivering potentially promising agents to the oncology community.

Despite all the difficulties, AVEO is now able to provide one of its therapies as a treatment option for certain kidney cancer patients.

FDA Approval as the Gift of Continuous Service Michael remarks that AVEO's biggest achievement or recognition to date is being granted approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) FDA to bring a product to patients. Only one in ten products that enter the clinical industry will gain an approval and for a small company with limited resources like AVEO, getting the FDA's approval is much rarer of an achievement. Recently, AVEO announced that the FDA granted Fast Track Designation (FTD) to ficlatuzumab for the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Ficlatuzumab is AVEO's investigational potent hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) immunoglobulin G1 (IgG1) inhibitory antibody that binds to the HGF ligand.

HGF is the natural ligand of c-Met and blocking HGF inhibits signaling through the HGF/c-Met signaling pathway.

Future that Seems Bright AVEO is very encouraged by the prospects of the company's pipeline and the biotech industry that it is a part of. Collectively, Michael says that AVEO hopes to continue its efforts in meeting the significant unmet needs of the cancer patients the company serves by providing hope and by improving the lives of the cancer warriors.

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Successful CEOs: Four Essential Qualities that Matter

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he job of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is the most challenging one. Even for those who have had a very successful career before doing the crown. It is evident by the consistently huge number of cropouts from the CEO positions. This has also made the cases for appointing CEOs exceedingly difficult for the Board of Directors.

But there are counterexamples too. In such cases, the CEOs have displayed extraordinary success and have made the company graphs go upwards. Interestingly a study exploring the profile of successful CEOs finds that many of them do not at all fit into the ideal CEO profile promoted by credible magazines like Forbes 500. The ideal profile contains certain specific positive physical attributes and high educational attainments of the CEO and relates them to their ability to produce high performance not only in normal times but even under severe pressure. A decadelong study called the CEO Genome Project, conducted in collaboration with some top-grade universities, business schools, and corporate analyst organizations comes up with startlingly different findings. After assessing more than 17,000 C suite executives, it has drawn a stereotypical behavioural pattern of the “perfect” qualities of a CEO. In even more revealing information, some major behavioural attributes that are essential for being a successful CEO include: Business Foresight It is essential for CEOs to consider the dynamic and ever-changing future through the ability to forecast. A forecast is considered to be having critical thinking of the future possibilities and prospects about customers, clients, partners, and www.analyticsinsight.net

stakeholders. It is twice as important for CEOs to run a business for the long term in this competitive market. CEOs are needed to have business foresight to steer the company in right directions with accurate business strategies to meet the needs of the customers. A strong and dedicated CEO can prepare possible outcomes with backup strategies without panicking or blaming employees in a company.

Having better business foresight means the CEO can think-out-ofbox, evaluate strategies and monitors the development and weak areas effectively.

key part to have a competitive edge in the market is to have better collaboration and coordination with the team. CEOs are needed to build strong relationships with the team members, employees, partners as well as stakeholders. High emotional intelligence helps in keeping multiple healthy relationships in professional life where they can read and connect to the emotions of the opposite person for a better understanding of the situation. It helps in leading with a trustworthy and uplifting approach to have a fruitful conversation and self-reinforcing culture of positive behaviours.

Adaptability Strong Communication Skills Adaptability is one of the major essential behavioural attributes of a successful CEO. The 21st century is constantly evolving with the advent of new and innovative cutting-edge technologies as well as digitization. There is a change in the global market scenario including tastes and preferences of customers. A successful CEO should have ability to adapt to certain changes that will come along the success path. The power to adapt to any situation leads to less frustration and more revenue in the nearby future. CEO should have the capability to make employees understand the power of adaptability when there is any change due to the techdriven market. The person should also be keen to learn and study new emerging technologies and issues in order to make the right changes in the office. The power of adaptability comes with an open change mindset for the preparation of potential scenarios with the team.

Emotional Intelligence

CEOs should have strong communication skills and know how to communicate in certain ways with certain people in the industry. It is not essential to always use business jargon while communicating with different levels of employees or stakeholders. CEOs should express and send messages through clear communication skills to inspire and motivate with effective leadership. Strong communication skill comes with strong listening skill as well. CEOs should be all-time ready to listen to the subordinates and employees about their problems as well as needs and wants for effective communication.

Thus, a successful CEO must possess these four major behavioural attributes to lead a successful company in the global market. If one of these qualities is not present in any aspiring CEO, the person can easily transform the skills and get training from the existing successful leaders in a company.

A successful CEO should have high emotional intelligence as an essential behavioural attribute. A

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Kash Shaikh

President and CEO, Virtana

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Kash Shaikh

Taking Charge to Enhance Technology (and Lives) in the New Normal

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ash Shaikh is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Virtana. He joined the company in 2020 to launch their next generation SaaS unified observability platform and prepare the go-to-market team to help customers along their journey to the cloud. Beyond the day-to-day, a large part of his role is to 'make the complex simple' for Virtana's customers, partners, and employees. It is Kash's job to ensure that every person has what they need to succeed, and to lead them with a servant mindset. He is guiding Virtana as the leading cloud optimization platform for digital transformation with the mission to improve the quality of life for everyday people along the way.

Virtana's vision is to provide a simple software platform that leverages high-definition precision data insights to manage, monitor, and secure any workload on any cloud for hybrid IT customers. The company's purpose is to simplify enterprise cloud complexity and accelerate digital transformation to drive human progress. They are accomplishing this mission by providing enterprises a unified observability platform for migrating, optimizing, and managing application workloads across public, private, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments.

The platform enables a 'know before you go' approach by providing intelligent observability into which workloads to migrate. It also ensures that unexpected costs and performance degradation are avoided once workloads are operating in the cloud. With the Virtana Platform, enterprises can confidently speed cloud adoption and reduce cloud operating costs by simplifying the management of their IT environments.

Living the 'American Dream' Kash came to the US as an immigrant 20+ years ago to earn a master's degree at Wichita State University, followed by an MBA from Boise State University. He then moved to Silicon

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Valley, the land of opportunities, to build his career in roles at Nortel, Cisco, HP, leading to an executive role at Dell. Time and hard work have allowed Kash to take on multiple leadership roles. In those roles, he learned a few things about servant leadership and emotional intelligence.

Kash admires the amazing successes of so many talented people in the technology and business world. However, the greatest professional and personal reward that he enjoys is investing in the growth of talented professionals and creating an environment where he can see them thrive, innovate, and inspire others to make a difference and change the world to be a better place.

Kash's parents sacrificed greatly to provide him with a stellar education that gave him a real shot at living the 'American Dream.' It instilled a strong work ethic in him that he balances with carefully calculated risks to grow as a business and technology leader. Kash's approach inspires his teams to think 'big picture' and helps them manage risks prudently.

Kash says, “The tech industry is a crowded, competitive space -- we all need to inspire and trust each other to deliver the products that enterprises really need, to unlock the benefits of the digital age.”

Learning Life Lessons from Personal Challenges Kash recalls one of the mistakes he made early on was hiring people just like him. He realized that the best people added to an organization do start with a commonality, not of background but of their 'why'- their sense of purpose. He feels that while shared values, goals, and background are good, if people have similar backgrounds without a common purpose, things will likely not work out. Conversely, people with different backgrounds and a common purpose can have excellent discussions about how to reach the same goals.

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To lead effectively in challenging times, we must be self-aware to recognize our emotions and manage their influence on those around us. With so much physical separation, it is essential we keep up communications, and positively influence others so everyone feels inspired and connected.

Kash Shaikh

President and CEO, Virtana

www.virtana.com

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When Kash first joined Virtana, he took on a 'listening and learning' tour, to understand what was working (and not working) within the company. This, along with leading from a servant mindset, is one of many reasons Kash is considered an inspirational leader in 2021.

A Vital CEO is a Servant Leader Kash says he 100% believes that leaders exist to serve their people and that an effective leader is a guide and mentor to encourage team members to reach their potential. Those served should ideally become freer, wiser, more autonomous, and more capable of becoming servant leaders themselves or reaching what they aspire to do and arrive wherever they want to go. He adds that as a servant leader, he believes in dedicating significant time in coaching his team members to develop and grow. He takes great joy in helping them improve into bigger and better roles.

Kash feels that servant leaders start with a core attribute – being a listener. The CEO who listens with empathy and asks probing and caring questions can have a meaningful impact.

They ask team members 'How are you feeling?' and 'What can I do to help?' This kind of care and compassion opens the door to understand and observe if someone is feeling overwhelmed. They use this awareness to encourage people to take a break, deprioritize some aspects of projects or delegate to other team members.

“People are going through a lot, so we all need to be kind and help others.”

Emotional Intelligence: A Must-Have Leadership Trait in 2021 Kash opines that leaders' ability to make sound decisions under today's trying circumstances requires emotional intelligence. To lead effectively in 2021, they must be selfaware and recognize, understand, and manage their own emotions to positively influence the emotions of others. He adds that with so much separation that looks like it is going to continue throughout this year, it's essential for leaders to keep up communications, and positively influence others, so everyone feels inspired and connected.

New Normal Trends as the Catalyst of Innovation Kash warns that IT leaders are under tremendous pressure to adapt to a new normal in the post-COVID-19 world with many employees fully remote or in a hybrid office or home environment. This has accelerated numerous migrations to the cloud. Virtana's survey of the Global 2000 also shows a lift and shift approach to cloud migration resulted in 67% experiencing unexpected cost and performance issues.

Therefore, he adds that the best approach to a successful digital transformation involving cloud migration is to 'know before you go.' Kash states that IT professionals need full

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insight and visibility into their IT infrastructure and a full understanding of where workloads and applications will work best before any decisions or moves are made.

'Cloud' Is the Future Kash (and Virtana) know that the cloud is big business. In a survey the company conducted, out of 350 IT decisionmakers in the US and UK, almost 95% of enterprises said they have moved some applications to the cloud. He adds that for many of these enterprises, cloud automation tools would have played a key role in the migration of their applications. Kash discloses that when it comes to automation, one key term that organizations need to understand and embrace is AIOps. AIOps combines big data analytics and machine learning to automate many elements of IT operations processes, including event correlation, anomaly detection, and causality determination. The importance of AIOps is directly correlated to the complexity, growth, and volume of telemetry data across private, multicloud, and hybrid cloud estates.

Driving into the Future with Multi-Cloud Kash envisions that with advanced cloud adoption, the need for greater skills for cloud and AI technologies will accelerate and create skill gaps that need to be closed in 2022 and beyond. He adds that Channel partners will become more important as enterprises want more guidance to know what to do before they execute a public cloud strategy. Kash states that the business problems are more complex, and the cloud offering is more varied. Therefore, multi-cloud management will only be more complex in the future.

Guidance for Business Leaders Kash's advice for emerging business leaders is to “listen first. There is a reason we were given two ears and one mouth.”

He also advises leaders to find a mentor who inspires them, not only in one's current job but a guide who can act as an advisor throughout their career. For example, he has a mentor who has inspired him and has also guided him over the last decade to build diverse high-performance teams, and act as a servant leader by investing time in the growth of talented people while keeping the company's best interests in mind.

Kash says he believes that significant time in the trenches in key business functional leadership along with a good deal of time with customers is required to be a successful leader.

This requires excellent listening skills and trust-building with internal teams and external customers and partners. Kash concludes by saying that he observes, listens, learns, and discusses before he makes decisions because nobody knows everything, and he learns something new every day.

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Mark Cohen CEO, Ntelicor

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Mark Cohen

Providing Unique Solutions by Combining Innovation with AI

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delivery transformation, data analytics, visualization and engineering, mobile app development, and full stack Java development. It provides its services in and across 39 states.

telicor is an industry leader in IT staffing and solutions, with over 21 years of expertise and unprecedented performance at some of the country's most renowned companies. Ntelicor, which was founded in 1998, supplies Fortune 50 corporations and businesses of all sizes with hard-to-find IT expertise, flexible employment, and IT solutions.

The firm is committed to meeting the individual demands of its customers.

Ntelicor deploys its experts and solutions quickly and effectively.

Ntelicor has been an IT consulting company since inception in 1998. The company originally focused on bringing IT talent from Russia and the former Soviet Union to the U.S. The model evolved over 18 months approximately to turn into a more traditional IT consulting company.

Showcasing Versatility in Providing Solutions and Services

An Insightful Leader Driving the Company

Ntelicor is an IT consulting firm based in Dallas. The company never got stuck around in a particular field. It always was versatile enough to serve in different areas of specializations. Ntelicor currently specializes in AGILE digital

Mark Cohen founded Ntelicor in 1998 and has served as CEO since that time.

Cohen's leadership has helped over 2300 people to start or to continue new jobs and careers. Several Fortune 50 companies working in both the private

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Aiming to bring IT Talents to the U.S.

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To lead effectively in challenging times, we must be self-aware to recognize our emotions and manage their influence on those around us. With so much physical separation, it is essential we keep up communications, and positively influence others so everyone feels inspired and connected.

Mark Cohen CEO, Ntelicor

www.ntelicor.com

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and public sectors rely upon Cohen's insights for supplying and projecting the company's IT needs.

Combining Judgement and Experience to Find the IT Talents Chronic shortages of IT talent and expertise have challenged corporate America and the U.S employers for over two decades now. This challenge is even greater today. Ntelicor combines its judgment, experience, extensive network and industry leading technology to provide hard to find IT talent and expertise on a timely, flexible and affordable basis.

Strategizing Innovation with AI Ntelicor is unique in the unparalleled quality of its internal corporate employees who drive the company. It is unique in its use of innovation labs and its ability to understand ahead of time.

What remains innovative about Ntelicor is the manner in which it combines industry leading tools, technology and AI with its extensive network and judgment.

It distinguishes itself from other national IT consulting firms by its commitment to the lives and work experiences of its employees, maximizing professional satisfaction and minimizing if not eliminating all related management and HR issues for its clients.

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Achievements and Recognitions Ntelicor is a past recipient of the prestigious Dell/NFIB Top 10 award for use of innovation and technology to maximize client satisfaction. Techserve Alliance recently recognized Ntelicor and one of its leaders as a top ten performer in the IT consulting industry. Ntelicor currently is or recently has been recognized as the #1 top IT consultant provider to the largest airline in the world, the primary deliver subsidiary of one of the two most prestigious consulting firms in the world, the largest provider of IT services to the federal government, and one of the nation's largest domestic airlines for several quarters.

Implementing Hybrid Working Solutions to Accommodate IT Talent Corporate America will continue to implement hybrid working solutions to accommodate IT talent being in short supply. Technology and tools will continue to evolve at an increasingly faster pace. But experts at the tech and the tools always will be needed. Ntelicor will evolve and grow with these needs is what the management believes.

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Paul Humphrey CEO, Call Journey

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Paul Humphrey A Serial Growth Accelerator Creating and Building High Performance Teams

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all Journey is a global leading advance speech analytics company, utilizing interactive AI to enrich the way organizations understand their customers. They have an advanced ecosystem called Voice AI, that can capture and analyse every conversation the organization has with its customers and employees have with each other. It helps organizations to produce nuanced insights in a simple, searchable, and actionable format by enhancing their customer experience, employee engagement, business performance, risk management and compliance.

The company is a CX/EX disruptor, changing the way organizations gain crucial insights into their customers and their employees. It partners with global leading firms like Microsoft, SAS, and Genesys. In the second half of the year, Call Journey is planning to launch an exciting new solution with Microsoft for Teams users, giving every team meeting attendee real time feedback. The solution is focused on employee health and well-being which are crucial insights of the current environment. To know more about the company, here is an exclusive interview with one of the co-founders and CEO, Paul Humphrey.

A Customer Centric Leader Paul Humphrey, co-founded Call Journey along with Anthony Karam around four years ago and has been the CEO of the organization since then. He is a serial growth accelerator with a long history of creating and building high performance teams and communities with an insatiable appetite for customer centricity. Humphrey built many organizations through acquisitions and has significant experience in complex large enterprises building discipline and sustained performance frameworks and results.

Over the last 30+ years he has delivered high caliber results across significantly competitive areas of

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IT/Telecommunications, Financial Services, Energy, Media, and Human Capital Services and has helped many individuals and organizations through professional services consulting.

Experiences and Achievements to Cherish Paul, with over thirty years of experience across various industries covering sales, marketing, IT, operations, HR, and consulting, has an extremely diverse experience to draw upon. Knowing what makes a high-performance organization hum across all aspects and areas is crucial for a successful CEO. Some of his best lessons came at the hands of “poor” leaders, diligently putting experiences or observations working under what he sees as toxic leadership in his memory bank.

Spending a good deal of his career in technology businesses, Humphrey worked with the stereotypical highly intelligent technologists. Through his experiences, he says that usually the people with whom he was working had high IQ but lacked EQ. He believes that emotional intelligence wins hands down every day.

The biggest asset according to Humphrey is his employees.

The best achievement is when employees are driven, motivated, disciplined, creative and most of all trusted.

Additionally, working under the premise of finding people smarter and different to him has always complimented how he leads as a CEO. Paul, talking about his experiences, says that learning what customers demand across SMB, Mid-market, enterprise, and government – has shaped his focus as a CEO, for being customer centric.

Learning from Major Obstacles In early leadership roles, Paul has faced the primal

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A great CEO needs to be a chameleon, managing expectations of boards and investors whilst ensuring there is an environment and framework in which the other business leaders can excel and customers can be served in a highway.

Paul Humphrey CEO, Call Journey

www.calljourney.com

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challenges of wanting to be respected by colleagues when he moved from a high-performance sales individual function to a high-performance sales leader. The perennial challenge of being a manager versus a leader was at play. And working frequently in technology driven businesses, there was another task of bringing together very different skilled individuals and teams with very different drivers and motivators. He states that communication is the only key to transparency.

Vital Attributes of a CEO Paul recounts saying he is a fan of Daniel Goleman and his view on emotional intelligence. Believing that a great CEO at core as people's leaders should intrinsically know how to drive, motivate, and empower people.

A great CEO needs to be a chameleon, managing expectations of boards and investors whilst ensuring there is an environment and framework in which other business leaders can excel and customers can be served in a high caliber way. They need to be “visionary” (one of Goleman's leadership styles) and convey that vision to the broad organization. The ability to work under extreme pressure is crucial. Humphrey says that the true face of a leader is exposed when the “Bunsen burner is turned on.” Being calm under pressure and unwavering in ethics and principles in this scenario is crucial. Equally, the ability to make tough decisions and drive down sometimes unpopular paths is crucial.

The ability to theoretically be an awesome chess player is crucial – having the IQ to see moves, risks, challenges, and opportunities ahead of time and the EQ to mobilize people (again the organizations biggest assets) to execute the moves.

The Journey Towards Innovating Customer Focused Products Paul started his journey by taking an MVP (Minimum Viable product) approach to the company's products/solutions. His personal experience as a business leader and the frustrations with lack of availability, time, and relevant data around the customers and employees, drove him towards founding Call Journey. What was not known at his time of founding the company was the fundamentals of what would solve such a problem and people's willingness to invest to do so.

So, with these questions in the back of his mind, he set up several “friendly” organizations to road test MVP solutions during the R & D phase. The feedback during the time was valuable as it taught Humphrey how to “walk in a customer's shoes”. He questioned himself on the challenges and as to how the company would try to fix, accomplish or avoid those without the use of artificial intelligence. How would customers utilize Call Journey's solutions in a real-world sense and make meaningful change based on the data they could provide?

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As CEO, he has always been driven by the customers' needs and feedback. Since the launch, he and his team have also set up customer forums where they get feedback and allow them to contribute to the product roadmap, watching carefully where the market is headed but ultimately the customers drive the market.

Disruptive Technologies and Innovation Paul emphasized that with the continued backdrop for CEOs of capital efficiency, growth, customer value and shareholder value, there is a continuous demand to “do things' smarter, faster, in a more agile fashion with a strong balance of cost efficiency but with a growth mindset. And with the challenging global health impacts of 2020, focus on shorter term and more effective decision making is at the forefront of most CEO's minds.

Accelerating adoption of Artificial Intelligence/IoT/ Automation/Cloud Computing/Big Data/Robotics is a huge focus to support innovation initiatives and underpinning BAU's future state. In fact, many organizations have accelerated past utilizing these technologies under an “innovation” banner to look at these technologies as the “norm.” AI adoption has accelerated significantly both in adoption and capability of cloud computing that has been accelerated by Covid and Big Data has been supercharged through the approach to Data Based Decision Making (DDBM).

He recounts to the statement of Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, that “the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the digitization process by at least a decade, and it has now become an essential part of how we function.” And with the growth of Big Data, the appetite for CEO's and organizations is at a fever pitch at the moment as most organizations scramble to know their customers and employees better than they ever did. For this he says, they need more accurate, timely and insightful data.

Future Ahead Humphrey sees the company with continuing to embrace an accelerating demand for better and more informative data around customers and employees utilizing AI driven insights from interactions as a potential fuel for innovation and transformation. With Microsoft's acquisition of Nuance for US$16 billion and with organizations like gong.io raising US$584 million to date, he says that there is a clear scope for AI based conversation intelligence.

He further adds, “Data is the new oil and data from customer and employee conversations is the holy grail for critical insights”. Call Journey, with the advanced ecosystem of Voice AI, will continue to be the 'go to' solutions for organizations across both the public and private sector as they scramble to find more effective ways to gain crucial insights about customers and employees.

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Ted Kohnen

CEO and Managing Partner

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Ted Kohnen

Building Resilience, From Brands to Businesses to the Boardroom

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t should be no surprise that a once-in-a-century global pandemic has tested the world's strength and resolve like no other challenge in decades. Business models have transformed. Supply chains have stretched. Social and political discourse has radically intensified. Most obviously, the physical health of virtually every person and, as critically, our mental and emotional wellbeing have been pushed to our limits.

Among the many learnings through the course of the COVID19 pandemic, resilience has proven to be the difference maker for successful organizations and their leaders. Those who've had it have thrived; those who haven't…haven't. It's a lesson well learned and realized by Ted Kohnen, the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner of Retina, a fastrising global marketing and technology company that has increased the resilience and delivered record results for enterprises and SMBs alike. In the process, Kohnen has led Retina to exponential growth and industry acclaim.

In an exclusive interview with Industry Wired, Kohnen speaks about his success, inspirations, challenges, and responsibilities in the company.

Maintaining an upward trajectory in a downturn Founded over a decade ago by Silicon Valley business leaders, engineers, and marketers, Retina is driven by a single minded-vision: the opportunities that businesses need to capture today and expect to capture tomorrow are realized through the seamless connection of strategy, creative, and technology.

Retina works with Fortune 500 and growth-stage innovators alike, including Facebook, Thermo Fisher Scientific, ING, Bank of Montreal, Audi, eXp World Holdings, Esquire Bank, The US Department of State and others. And the company operates from strategic locations around the globe in San

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Francisco, New York, Toronto, Glasgow, Vienna, Madrid, and Bucharest.

Kohnen became Retina's CEO three months before the COVID-19 pandemic fully took hold. He recalls, “January 1, I assumed the role. Early February, the virus landed in the States. In March, we locked down. This was obviously a test of all CEOs, from all companies with all sorts of background, let alone for a new chief executive.”

As a 20-year marketing and advertising agency veteran with broad experience helping global enterprises, multi-nationals, and non-profits activate their brands, Kohnen, was well suited to meet the challenges head on.

“I've been shaped largely by a diversity of experiences.

Growing up and starting my career in New York City, I was exposed to many different kinds of people and businesses, from many different vantage points,” Kohnen reflects.

“Global and local. For-profit and non-profit. Technology and professional services. Agency and client side. I like to think I took the best from the teammates and leaders I've encountered along the way on how to manage people, how to prepare for growth, how to think multi-dimensionally.”

Kohnen adds, “I also think I learned tremendous lessons working for national non-profit organizations, where everything runs lean. It's typically always 'all hands on deck,' and there's so much competition for attention and donations.

Working in such an environment really sharpens your skills to get right to what's most essential to communicate – and teaches you how to maximize every resource at your disposal.”

Kohnen's experience fueled his approach and priorities as he took the reins at Retina. He vigilantly pursued growth,

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Successful CEOs and corporate leadership will be defined by not only the business metrics achieved but also the 'people' metrics – and how skillfully they are able to make the critical connection between the two.

Ted Kohnen

CEO and Managing Partner

www.retinab2.com

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yielding Retina's most successful year in 2020, increasing year-over-year billings nearly 70%, growing profits 4x, and increasing headcount by 59% globally. Secondly, he focused on the culture of the agency, ensuring its people have professional development plans, a physical and mental health opportunities, and an environment to do their best work.

“You need to see businesses and people through different lenses,” Kohnen observes. “I also think CEOs need to be highly visible and transparent. Especially during COVID, I knew if I communicated, and did so frequently, with a calm and positive tone, our people had a little less anxiety. Along those lines, I think CEOs need to open up. For example, employees should see that CEOs are parents, too, that face similar challenges and resource constraints that everyone faces.”

Along with Retina's Founding Partner Silvian Centiu; Chief Operations Officer Simona Nan, and Chief Technology Officer Dragos Andrei, the company was transparent with their global staff and supported them through all means such as virtual town halls, real-time Q&As, and weekly support videos. Kohnen walked his talk through the pandemic, working closely with company leadership to be transparent with global staff and supporting them through virtual town halls, weekly support videos, and real-time Q&As. As a result, Kohnen proudly states, “At Retina, we've had no furloughs, and we didn't reduce salaries. We also provided resources for self-care and mental health, and we rolled out new agency values to guide our actions.”

What's more, the company enjoyed its greatest industry recognitions, being named an 'Agency of the Year' three times in twelve months, including recognition as the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) 2020 Agency of the Year, The Drum's 2020 Martech Agency of the Year, and B2B Marketing magazine's 2021 Agency of the Year in the United States.

Digital builds resilience…physical fitness, too If organizations did not have a digital transformation strategy prior to the pandemic, they do now. The nature of remote, distributed and hybrid work has forced leaders to determine which digital platforms best fit their people and processes, and Kohnen sees his role and that of his Retina colleagues as critical to supporting others in their quests for building digital-first resilience for this pandemic and for future black swan-like events.

“At Retina, where expert teams specify, design, and deploy big data, AI, and robotics solutions on behalf of our clients, our roles as informed consultants are even more critical. We are relied upon to separate the buzzwords from the business imperatives. We are responsible for educating clients on how different disruptive technologies can dramatically improve

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productivity, efficiency, scalability, marketing, and business performance, and also to say when certain technology may not be a good investment.”

He adds, “We need to be able to not only recognize a challenge, but bring the strategic mindset to address it head on. Because we work across a diverse set of industries, innovation comes from identifying common blockers – to scale, to actionable data, to people – and finding actionable solutions, connecting the dots for clients in ways that ultimately connect their brands and businesses with their most important stakeholders.”

Kohnen also notes the need for building personal resilience for all leaders, citing the human toll of leadership for CEOs and senior executives. “It isn't easy,” he says. “At the CEO level, I've come to realize that this job is as much physical as it is mental. It's a real holistic life change that requires that you continually think about how you maintain your strength and energy, from how you sleep to what you eat and drink – and how you manage stress and decompress.”

“I believe every leader needs to possess high levels of empathy, transparency and grit.”

Leadership Advice for The Road Ahead “I see a further break down of geographic borders“ Kohnen predicts, when asked about his outlook on the future and the lasting impact of the past year. “When it comes to where people work and/or the customer they work with, geography is less and less of a barrier or even a topic of concern.”

That said, Kohnen doesn't see less travel as a sign of leaders standing still. Much the opposite, Ted sees speed, agility and tenacity as more critical character traits of a leader than ever. He states, “CEO is a great title, but I think 'Chief of Hustle' is more apt. It's always about hustling – which is where the energy and stamina comes in – whether you're pitching new business, structuring financial growth models, recruiting top talent, or just making sure the office wireless bill got paid on time.”

The old adage of going fast alone but farther together rings true for Kohnen. “You can't do it all yourself,” he stresses.

“You need to surround yourself with quality people. Lots of leaders say it; but they say it because it's true.” Along with Partners, Centiu, Nan and Andrei, Ted is joined by Partners Michael Ruby (Chief Creative Officer), Lynn Kozak (Managing Partner, Canada) and Fabian Moldoveanu (Director of Digital Transformation).

Lastly, Ted concludes by stating to remember the bad things that happen along the way. “Learn from your failures. It's the hardest thing to do to relive a loss, but it's the most important thing you can do. The losses are better learning opportunities than the wins”.

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Trevor M. Saliba CEO

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Trevor M. Saliba Delivering Measurable, Sustainable Results through Strategic Consulting Solutions

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anagement consulting firms focus on helping enterprises with the most critical issues and opportunities to transform businesses, catalyse innovation and accelerate profitable growth. One such firm which enable organizations to improve time-to-market, boost quality and become a truly adaptive organization is NMS Consulting led by Trevor M. Saliba.

Founded in 2018, NMS Consulting is a global management consulting and strategic advisory firm that specializes in delivering services to a global client base of private and public companies, government agencies, philanthropic organizations, and the individuals who lead them. With a global footprint of fifteen offices located throughout the United States, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East staffed with more than 250 seasoned professionals, its clients benefit from a combination of diverse skills, expertise, and global organization offering a unique multi-disciplinary 360 solutions platform.

Building an Efficient Organization Trevor is the founding Managing Partner of NMS www.analyticsinsight.net

Consulting, a global management consulting and strategic advisory firm based in the firm's Beverly Hills where he serves a global client base. Trevor is also Chairman & CEO of NMS Capital Group, global focused venture capital and private equity investment firm with investments across multiple asset classes including real estate, financial and business services, infrastructure and energy, consumer products, technology, and media. Previously, he also served as Chairman and CEO of NMS Capital Advisors, a subsidiary portfolio company of NMS Capital Group and a Los Angeles based boutique investment banking firm that specialized in mergers and acquisitions, cross border investment transactions, private equity, and asset management advisory services to public and private clients throughout the world.

Under Trevor's leadership from 2012 – 2017 (sold and exited in 2018), the investment bank achieved cumulative sales growth of over 5,100% with annual compounded sales growth of over 120%. Having worked on and completed more than US$5 billion in transactions during that same period, the investment bank was repeatedly ranked among the Top 10 investment banks by the Los Angeles Business Journal since 2014 with Trevor been recognized as one of the “Most Influential Investment Bankers” in the 2018 inaugural edition.

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We aim to be more than just a consulting firm, we strive to be a dedicated catalyst for the growth and success of your business.

Trevor M. Saliba CEO

www.nmsconsulting.com

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Over the past 25 years, Trevor has worked as an investment banker, private equity investor, and in a variety of C-suite roles in senior management for private and public companies.

In 2018, as part of a spinoff of his private equity group's consulting practice, he founded NMS Consulting. As a Managing Partner, he directly oversees the global practice groups for private equity, M&A, and strategy.

Trevor is an alumnus of Columbia Business School. He is the former President of the Los Angeles/Orange County Chapter for the Global Association of Risk Professionals. His current professional memberships include the Association for Corporate Growth – Los Angeles Chapter and the Young Presidents Organization (YPO). In 2018 he became a Milken Institute Associate.

Accelerating Growth and Transformation NMS Consulting started as an idea; a consulting firm that could deliver large firm service and capabilities without the large firm price premium to its clients and more importantly, sustain that model as it grows. It sounded like a great idea but has presented its challenges, especially in recruiting. However, the company has been successful in growing the firm organically and through strategic acquisitions and now is positioned where it can compete globally but still operate as a “boutique” firm. More importantly, the company had stayed true to its plan.

Conquering Business Complexities The biggest challenge for the company has been attracting professional consultants who are entrepreneurial versus just looking for work to execute. The independent consulting universe is made up primarily of individuals who can execute, generating new business or client opportunities which is not something they excel at. Trevor says, 'consultants in our firm who can generate new business and clients, do very well, www.analyticsinsight.net

in fact far better than they would at other firms based on our compensation structure”.

“Always Keep Your Word”, Basic Trait for Every CEO According to Trevor, attributes that every CEO must possess comes down to a few key things; first, being open-minded and always willing to listen. Second, doing what you say and saying what you do - always keep your word. Lastly, be ready and willing and more importantly know how to do any job in the firm. Additionally, he has advices leaders to always know the risks but to remain fearless in their endeavours.

Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies Artificial intelligence, IoT, automation, cloud computing, big data, robotics, all these technologies fall under the NMS Consulting's Digital Transformation practice group, which is a rapidly growing practice in the firm globally.

Trevor believes that a properly developed and more importantly, implemented plan can transform any business to go to the next level. In today's world, it's not an option, but a necessity.

The Future Ahead Commenting on the road ahead Trevor says, “I think there is going to be a wider separation between the big firms (more than 1,000 staff) and smaller firms over the next few years”.

However, there will be new niche service sectors that will open up, especially in overall technology.

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here's a misconception among the general public that anyone who owns a business becomes a leader.

The logic behind this thought is that the owner is obviously leading the business, making crucial decisions, and picking what are the right and wrong strategies for the business niche. Is that all it takes to be a leader? While those are important tasks of business leadership, that's not the finite list. There's so much more to being a business leader. It requires a variety of skills, personal traits and years of experience. All things combined, with the right leadership, businesses achieve more.

Every day, a business goes through different functions and witnesses various challenges that pose threats to the business. On a day-today basis, it can be easy to lose sight of the bigger picture and sway away from the goal. A leader needs to oversee the everyday activities and be aware of the potential problems to the detail to navigate the business in the right direction. An efficient leader is responsible for ensuring employee morale and

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commitment. This means the leader must be confident that the employees understand the vital role they play and keep them motivated.

As stated earlier, creating initial business strategies and plans is a critical part of a business leader's role, as the CEO. But it's not just limited to that. Once a plan is formulated, a leader also needs to guide and support the business through strategic and operational changes. This means the leader should be steadfast and have excellent communication and people skills to manage and minimize the resistance during the tumultuous time.

It's normal for employees to feel clueless and overwhelmed during such times.

Good leaders leave a mark on their employees by investing in their interests. A good leader not only sees the value of their employees but also puts efforts into training the employees the right way and giving them opportunities to develop.

With opportunities that are in their best interests, employees deliver better performance for your

business and remain loyal.

This will also boost the team's morale.

If an employee identifies and connects with the culture, vision and values of the company, it is likely that the person will feel satisfied by their work and go the extra mile to ensure the company succeeds. To create such an environment, the leader should establish a collaborative environment and build a foundation for the company culture that makes sure the employees feel like they are a part of the collective and see the leader's trust and respect.

Only when a leader trusts the employees and believes in their skills, tasks will get done efficiently without the need to micromanaging.

A good leader represents an organization at all fronts, to the public, the media, the stakeholders and the internal workers. Good business leadership impacts the overall working of a company and acts as a pillar of strength for business innovation and success.

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With the Right Business Leadership, Companies Reap the Rewards

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